Stakeholders want a pet feature. Instead of using your official intake process they go straight to your lead engineer over Slack. Before you know it your team is building a shadow roadmap.
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This destroys alignment and breaks down trust.
When stakeholders bypass you they are sending a clear signal. They think your process is a black hole or too slow. Do not just get angry. Tighten your loop. Make your regular prioritization visible, fast and highly predictable so they have no incentive to cheat the system.
How do you handle the end run?
Have you ever caught a stakeholder sneaking a feature past you straight into the engineering queue? Hit reply and tell me how you handled it without damaging the relationship.